The present invention relates to large electronic information presentation surfaces and more specifically to large surfaces and ways of controlling information presented on those surfaces that facilitate various work and information sharing activities.
People have been conferencing in many ways for thousands of years to share information and to learn from each other in various settings including business, educational and social settings. Relatively recently technology has evolved that enables people to share information in new and particularly useful ways. For instance, computers and video projectors have been developed in the past few decades that enable an information presenter to display computer application content in a large presentation format to conferees in conference or other spaces. In these cases, a presenter's computer (e.g., often a personal laptop) running an application such as Power Point by Microsoft is connected to a projector via a video cable and the presenter's computer is used to drive the projector like an additional computer display screen so that the desktop (e.g., the instantaneous image on the presenter's computer display screen) on the presenter's computer is presented via the projector on a large video screen that can be viewed by persons within a conference room.
More recent systems have been developed that employ electronic flat panel display screens instead of projectors and that enable more than one conferee to simultaneously share digital content (e.g., software application output) on common conference screens. For instance, Steelcase markets a Media:scape system that includes two or more common flat panel display screens supported adjacent one edge of a conference table, a switching device or application and a set (e.g., six) of link/control subassemblies where each subassembly can link to a different conferee computing device (e.g., a laptop). Each computing device user can select any subset of the common screens to share the user's device desktop and hence application output with others gathered about the conference table. Common screen control is egalitarian so that any user linked to one of the link/control subassemblies can assume control of one or more of the common screens whenever they want to without any requirement that other users grant permission. Applicant output can include a still image, a video output (e.g., a video accessed via the Internet) or dynamic output of a computer application as a device user interacts with a software application (e.g., as a word processing application is used to edit a document).
While Media: scape works well for small groups wanting to quickly share digital content among themselves in a dynamic fashion, the system has several shortcomings. First, the ability to simultaneously share content from multiple sources is limited by the number of common display screens included in the system. For instance, where a Media: scape system only includes two common display screens, output from only two sources can be simultaneously presented.
Second, current versions of Media:scape do not include a feature that enables conferees to archive session images for subsequent access and therefore the system is best suited for realtime content sharing as opposed to generating session information that is maintained in a persistent state.
Third, the ability to move content around on common screens is not fluid. For instance, if first through fourth different sources are used to simultaneously drive first through fourth different Media:scape screens and a user wants to swap content from the fourth screen with content from the first screen, in most cases there is no way for the single user to accomplish this task. This is because two different sources initially drive the first and fourth common screens and usually one user does not control two sources. For instance, usually a first user's device would drive the first screen and a fourth user's device would drive the fourth screen and both the first and fourth user would have to cooperate to accomplish the swap.
Fourth, Media: scape does not enable direct resizing of content on common display screens to render content in sizes that are optimized for specific viewing applications. To this end, while Media: scape screens are relatively large, the screens have sizes that are generally optimized for use by conferees gathered about the Media: scape conference table adjacent thereto. If conferees are spaced from the Media: scape table, the size of content shared on the common screens is often too small to be optimal.
Fifth, Media:scape hardware is usually arranged to be stationary and therefore user's are constrained to viewing content on stationary display screens relative to the conference table and other hardware. Again, while this arrangement may be optimal for some situations, optimal arrangement of content about a conference space is often a matter of user choice based on tasks to accomplish, conferees in attendance, content being shared, etc.
Other conferencing systems have been developed that allow people in a conference space to share information within the space on a plurality of large flat panel display screens that are provided about walls that define the conference space. For instance, the screen space of three large flat panel displays may be divided into a set of nine smaller presentation spaces arranged to form a ribbon of spaces so that nine distinct images can be simultaneously shared along the ribbon. If desired, three of the nine images in the smaller spaces can be enlarged and presented on the three large common displays. Output to the screens can include still images, video output or dynamic output of an application program.
At least one known system includes a wand device usable by a presenter to interact on the common screens with applications that drive the common screens. For instance, the wand can be used to move common presentation spaces about the common screens to rearrange the spaces and immediately associated content, to resize one or more of the presentation spaces and associated content, to cycle through content that runs off the common screens during a session, etc.
Some systems also facilitates control of commonly presented content via portable user devices such as laptops, pad type computing devices, etc. To this end, some systems present a touch interface on a user's portable pad or tablet type device screen that can be used to control common screen content.
These other known systems, unfortunately, also have some shortcomings. First, known systems includes stationary hardware that restricts how the system can be used by conferees. For instance, a typical system may be provided in a conference space that includes a front wall, a rear wall and two side walls and may include three large common display screens mounted side by side to the front wall as well as one side screen mounted to each side walls with a conference table supported between the space walls. Thus, user's of the space are typically arranged about the table and angle themselves, most of the time, to face the front wall where content is being presented via the front three display screens. Here, images may be provided on the side screens, for the most part the side and rear walls are effectively unutilized or at least are underutilized by conferees. Here, for persons to view the common content, in many cases, the arrangement requires users to turn away from each other and toward the common content so that face to face conversations are difficult to carry on.
Second, while session content for several session images may be simultaneously presented via the relatively small presentation spaces provided on the three display screens mounted to the front wall, the content is often too small for actual reference and the content needs to be increased in size in order to appreciate any detail presented. Increasing content size of some content causes the enlarged content to disadvantageously block out views of other content.
Third, known systems require users to use either a special device like a wand or a portable personal user device to interact with presented content. While the wand is interesting, it is believed there may be better interfaces for commonly displayed content. To this end, most systems only include a single wand and therefore wand control and content control using the wand has to be passed from one conferee to another which makes egalitarian control less attractive. While personal user device interfaces are useful, in many cases users may not want to carry a personal device around or the size of the personal device screen may be insufficient to support at least certain useful interface activities.
Fourth, as more features are added to common display screens within a system, portable personal interface devices can become much more complex and far less intuitive to operate. For instance, where an interface includes nine relatively small presentation spaces in a ribbon form, a personal device interface may also includes nine spaces and may also include other tools to facilitate user input. On a small portable device screen too much information or too many icons or fields can be intimidating. In addition, where an interface is oriented differently than commonly presented information, the relative juxtaposition of the interface and commonly displayed information can be disorienting.